Best Festival Orange County 2010 - May Day Festival at the Phoenix Club

If you're one of those people who thinks every month should have its own Oktoberfest, then fret not because there is room for your beer-swilling self over at the Phoenix Club, home to the largest outdoor festhalle in the country. Every May 1, the club opens its doors to the public for a daylong celebration of all things Germanic: sauerkraut, sausage, polka music, maypole dancing—sorry, fellas, not that kind of pole dancing, but rather the medieval-era one involving a tall pole, lots of ribbons and walking in circles—and beer. Lots of beer, and it goes for about half of the ridiculously overpriced Oktoberfest brews they sell at Huntington Beach's Old World Village. Long tables provide plenty of room underneath propeller-size fans hanging from the ceiling of the tent, while a never-ending parade of dancers in folk costumes struts its stuff in front of the white-haired polka band onstage. There's even a lady who stands in the middle of the floor with an unnaturally happy smile and cracks a whip just inches from your face. Achtung, baby!